Hawks fly over disappointing 36ers in NBL

Adelaide started well at home against Illawarra but were overcome in the end to go down 96-87 in the NBL.

Devon Johnsonfrom the Hawks rebounds

The Ilawarra Hawks recovered from a sluggish start to steamroll the Adelaide 36ers 96-87. (AAP)

The Illawarra Hawks have recovered from a sluggish start to beat the Adelaide 36ers 96-87 in their NBL clash.

Trailing at every change and by up 15 points early in Saturday night's third quarter, the Hawks staged a fourth-term fightback, outscoring the Sixers 33-15 after three-quarter time.

Americans Demitrius Conger (26 points, 10 rebounds) and Rotnei Clarke (24 points, eight rebounds) led the way for the visitors, while only Ramone Moore (24 points, 12 in the final period) helped Adelaide when it mattered.

The Hawks looked particularly ordinary early, trailing 17-6 en route to a 30-20 deficit at the end of the first quarter.

Clarke looked like breaking the game open in the second but, with Shannon Shorter aggressive on offence at the other end, the home side led 50-39 at halftime.

The Hawks still trailed 72-63 at the final change before opening the fourth stanza spectacularly, shellshocking Adelaide into submission.

Clarke drilled back-to-back triples to slice the margin to just three points inside the first minute, before the visitors took the lead on a Rhys Martin drive.

The 36ers lost their way against Illawarra's zone defence with shoddy shot selection, haphazard ball use and poor rebounding.

Anthony Drmic's buzzer-beating prayer and Moore's solo hand were the only positives out of a disastrous last 10 minutes for the Sixers.

Illawarra coach Rob Beveridge praised his side's ability to stay within arm's length on the scoreboard for three quarters, which made their fourth-quarter assault possible.

"We hung around like a bad smell," he said. "That final quarter, we locked in.

"It was an incredible performance in that final quarter in particular. I'm so proud of these guys."

For Adelaide coach Joey Wright, the final term meltdown could not have been worse.

"We had some really, really terrible shot selection in the fourth quarter, we didn't get back on defence and we fouled a lot," he said.

"Every aspect of what could go wrong in a fourth quarter did."


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Source: AAP


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